


The Soldier Who Came In From the Cold

by evie_ems



Series: We Must Love One Another Or Die [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Natasha Romanov, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Other, POV Natasha Romanov, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Canon, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Natasha Romanov, Spy Natasha Romanov, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 04:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18161591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evie_ems/pseuds/evie_ems
Summary: Natasha has worked for Control all her life. It is all she has ever known. It is what she was built for, what she was trained for. It is the only home she has ever known.When she walks away it must be for good.This story exists in the same story universe as my series featuring Steve and Bucky living in Brooklyn before the war and then fighting side by side with the rest of the Howling Commandos.We will see some Winter Soldier in here somewhere.Eventually, I will write post-Winter Soldier Bucky Remembers stories, but for right now I was inspired by John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and wanted to tell Natasha's story.





	1. The Spy

Natasha sips bitter coffee while the young soldier gazes through viewfinders at the checkpoint. At least the coffee was hot, she thinks, swallowing it without expression.

“There’s a car approaching,” the soldier says. “Black. Fiat. Are you sure it’s him? It’s been hours.”

“He’s on the run. He’ll come in when he can. I’ll wait,” Natasha tells him.

“They’re checking his papers. I mean her papers. It’s a woman.”

Natasha swears quietly.

The young soldier glances sharply at her. “Who is it?”

“That idiot,” she mutters, ignoring the man. “He got her into this too.”

“Who is she?”

“I’ll speak with her down there,” Natasha says, dropping the mug full of bitter coffee on the rickety office table and heading for the door. “Radio down.”

“They came for him,” the woman says in a reedy voice. Her emotions are high, making her gasp for breath as she speaks. She is pretty, with dark hair and a carefully made-up face. A few years older than me, Natasha thinks. Maybe.

“He ran and told me to come here. To this checkpoint. His landlord’s son works here.”

“How did you get through?” Natasha asks. “My husband and I— we work for a photographic company. We cross often. But I’m not going back. Karl will be here soon.”

Natasha can hear the hopeful certainty in the woman’s voice. Stupid, she thinks, to trust one’s lover for anything. Emotional entanglements always botch jobs. But it was also how she got anything done. She just didn’t let herself get tangled too.

“And he sent you,” Natasha sums up.

“He trusts me. He told me everything.”

“Did he?” Natasha asks, her voice flat and hard.

“You’re an idiot for coming with him,” she tells the woman. Then she orders the young soldier to take Karl’s married lover to the safe house.

“No! I want to be here when Karl comes!” the woman cries. But Natasha is already on her way back up to the office.

 

She watches by herself in the silent office as a bicycle slowly approaches the checkpoint several hours later. She recognizes the blond, nearly white hair of Karl Reznikov. He gives the officers a smile on his side of the gate. It is a charming smile. Karl is a charming man.

Natasha takes a deep breath. This was the hardest part. Karl moves slowly, casually, as if nothing is wrong. One officer steps into the guard booth to verify his credentials. She sees the other officer laugh at something Karl says. The officer steps out and hands Karl his identification.

The gate slowly lifts. Karl begins wheeling his bicycle through it when one of the guards turns his head and darts back into the phone booth. The phone is ringing. Natasha swings her binoculars over and focuses on the guard. He answers and speaks. Quickly, she finds Karl again. He has dropped the bicycle and is running.

Natasha bites her lip hard. He should have kept walking slowly. Stupid man!

The guard who laughed drops to one knee, aiming his rifle. The other guard dashes back out and also drops to one knee. He shouts something. Then, there is the sound of gunfire crackling in the cold air, echoing against the concrete and metal of the checkpoint’s walls. Karl stops as though someone has kicked him in the back, then he slowly folds forward. Natasha lowers the binoculars.


	2. Wear and Tear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha spirals without work to keep her focused.

At first, Natasha keeps to her normal schedule, the same she’d always had when she was not at work.

Training with her regular trainers at the gymnasium.

Shopping.

Getting massages and facials that leave her skin so bright she wants to give everyone on the street sunglasses.

She gets her hair dyed redder than ever before. It’s a bold, almost neon color. Previously, she would never have permitted herself to go so red. But she was on a break.

She should have done this years ago. Her bank accounts have just been sitting there while she was running around Croatia, and crouching on freezing rooftops in Poland.

She wears dresses she’d never have dared wear before, because you can’t exactly kick ass in a floor length, velvet, off the shoulder gown. The men who take her to dinner and the ballet seem to appreciate it. So does she. She also enjoys the taking off of said gowns in luxurious hotel rooms with the men who take her to dinner and the ballet.

One man in particular, Alexei, is the most fun. He’s the son of an oil billionaire, and is more than happy to take her skiing, or to the beaches in Thailand. He’s fun and charming, and exactly what she needs right now. The drinking is different on vacation time too. There is so much more time for it. She goes through whole cocktail menus with Alexei, learning exactly which drink she, Natasha, likes best. Before, it was always what her character liked. But now she knows. Lemon drops. The vodka is icy, the lemons tart, and the rim of sugar as sweet as she can take it. She also likes whiskey at room temperature.

However, she only drinks that when Alexei is away. She drinks so much of it that one night she falls asleep on her couch, the first time that has ever happened. Despite the blinding headache, she rather likes being drunk, actually drunk and not pretend-drunk. She decides to try it again, soon.

When Alexei stops coming around or responding to her text messages Natasha doesn’t think anything of it and schedules another nail appointment. But she gets stood up in a restaurant. Alexei had promised to meet her, and she was wearing her newest gown, a white satin number that couldn’t be worn with underwear.

It was raining when she finally left the restaurant, after sitting at their table in the center of the room for two hours. The maitre’d tried to secure a taxi for her, but by the time one arrived her dress was nearly transparent and the vintage fur coat she wore with it was ruined.

She has a cold when she arrives at the training facility for her usual session. The room feels empty too, and she struggles through a workout. Marina, her trainer, forbids her from coming to her workout tomorrow.

Instead, Natasha rests in bed with hot tea laced with whiskey beside her, flicking through channel after channel of shows. She does not know what to watch. She has never had much time for television. It has always felt too neat and superficial. Too surface to be appealing. She prefers books. Or movies. But no book can hold her attention for long at the moment. Lately, she has been falling asleep during movies and waking up in the middle of the night, confused and unsettled.

She takes an extra day from training, even though the cold is gone. Her body feels sluggish and tired.

Pacing through the large Moscow apartment, Natasha picks up and sets down item after item, wondering where she got each of them, and why. They are so stupid. So stupid and so pretty.

She returns to the gym the next day. It isn’t good to get too complacent.

“You never told me, did your mother enjoy the spa trip?” she asks Marina as she stretches.

“Oh, yes. So much.”

“Where did you take her?”

“The hot springs at Terme Rogaska. She has been wanting to go to the spas for years now.”

“Terme Rogaska. Where is that?”

“Slovenia, where she is from. We visited with her family that still lives there, then spent two days soaking in thermal baths. So relaxing!”

“That sounds lovely.”

“How are you today?” Marina asks, watching her closely.

“I’m good. No more cold,” Natasha says, leaning over to stretch her hamstrings.

But, when she begins to spar with Markus everything feels off. Her reflexes are slow, and her punches lack force. Marina shakes her head.

“Maybe you take a few more days, yeah?” she suggests.

“If I take any more time off I’ll die of boredom,” Natasha tells her.

Marina shrugs.

“I’m going to do some tumbling passes,” Natasha tells her. Tumbling always gets her head in the right spot. She stands at one corner of the mat and breaths in slowly, focusing her attention on the task at hand. No room for error, she thinks, and takes off running. She’s on her second pass when her left knee gives. Landing hard on it, she wails and topples over. The pain rips through her like a flash of lightening, nearly blinding her for a moment. When she can stop crying and gasping she senses Marina by her side, stammering and gasping as well.

“Where does it hurt, HHH? Tell me, where?”

“My knee,” Natasha says through gritted teeth.

Marina stays with her during the ambulance ride, and doesn’t want to leave her in the hospital either, but Natasha reassures her she will be fine. Besides, someone has to call the Organization.

It’s a tear. Not the worst they’ve seen, but still requiring crutches and physical therapy, the doctors announce. She is given pain killers that barely work, and a brace that cinches her knee, keeping it in place. A wheelchair with a leg extender completes the miserable picture.

When Natasha is released the next day she is pale and drawn from pain, delirious but wired from opiates and unable to maneuver without the assistance of some junior official the Organization has ordered to her bedside.

She is given ‘round the clock care by the Organization for the next week. She barely speaks to them except to thank them for meals, and offering her strong arm so she can stand from whatever seat or toilet or bed she is immobilized on.

The TV provides background noise but Natasha doesn’t watch. She lays on her right side, staring down onto the narrow part of the city street she can see from her window. In her living room the junior official of the day confers in low voices with last night’s aide.

“She is depressed, is she not?”

“Wouldn’t you be? If you were the most feared assassin since— well, if you were her and now you’re laid up with a ruined knee?”

“Yes, of course. But the doctors say she will make a full recovery. With physical therapy.”

“It will never be the same,” last night’s aide shakes his head.

“You cannot recapture the same strength. Not at her age.”

“But she is young!” “Twenty-six is young, yes, but she has been active since she was a child. Control says she is worn down.”

After a week of bed rest Natasha is ordered to a physical therapy session. Her red hair is faded but she doesn’t make another appointment. Her skin is dull. Her eyes are ringed by dark shadows that remain when the lights come on. The therapist holds her gently, like she is an old woman, and it makes Natasha want to weep.

“Does it hurt?” the young woman says softly. Unable to speak, Natasha nods. It does hurt. She wants it to stop.

For six weeks she works with the therapist. She does nothing else. An hour session, then home. Order in food. Drink whiskey. Fall asleep on the couch. At first, the junior officials who are assigned to check on her pretend nothing is wrong.

Her nails chip. Her hair fades, and her roots begin to show. The gowns she bought hang in her closet. She wears yoga pants and T-shirts that are stretched at the neckline, with hoodies that start to accumulate stains on the cuffs from the food she eats in front of the television.

She doesn’t like to miss her shows. She prefers reality shows because they are easy to follow. The dating ones are her favorite because she likes to roll her eyes at the women who seem to only care about the stupid American man. Or _Survivor_. She can sneer at the helpless idiots who wouldn’t know the first thing about surviving.

The junior officials do not reveal the truth to Control. They soften the state of Natasha’s vacation life. They are optimistic that she will soon be fully recovered from her injury. They do not mention the whiskey. They do not mention the reality TV.

When she finishes therapy Natasha can walk like normal, but she is stiff and careful in training sessions. Marina suggests she goes to soak in the hot springs. The Terme Rogaska in Slovenia is sure to relax her. And maybe while she is there she can go to a salon, no? Natasha smiles wanly at her. But she researches it.

“She wants to go to a spa?” one junior official says to the other.

“It’s therapeutic,” the other shrugs. “Besides, she’s no good to anyone like this.” They both grimace down at their paperwork. Control signs off, and Natasha can plan her trip.

It has been nearly six months since she sat in Control’s office, trying not to think about Karl. Five months since she discovered a taste for long, velvet gowns. Four months since she began enjoying whiskey. Two months since she fell. Three weeks since she began drinking tumblerfuls to fall asleep. Tomorrow, she will go to the spas.


	3. Metal Fatigue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha meets with Control.

In Moscow, Natasha stands by the door of a large office room while she waits to be seen. To her right are rows of desks three deep, full of FSB workers. At the end of the desks is a large door. She is waiting for it to open. Control is back there and he will want to know what happened.

Although she feels eyes on her, when she turns her head Natasha only sees busy workers. She focuses her attention on the whorl of the wood walls in front of her.

At last, she is called forward, and she makes her way down the aisle, ignoring the heat of eyes on her as she goes.

“Agent Alianovna,” a friendly looking man greets her with a handshake at the office door.

He has fine wrinkles around his eyes and puffy bags under them, but his eyes are bright and his skin lacks the pallor of most Moscow citizens in February. His eyebrows rise a bit where they meet over his nose, giving him the innocent look of a large dog. His hair is a bit shaggy as well, she notices. It makes her wonder about his wife. He seems of an age where some woman dictates when he cut it. His suit is not neatly pressed, but neither is it sloppy. He looks more like a salesman than a FSB control official.

“Please, sit,” he tells her. So she does.

She knows what is to come, at least part of it. She gives her briefing efficiently when asked to do so, speaking in a calm but clipped voice. When she comes to the end, as she describes watching Karl at the checkpoint, her voice grows thick and her words are harder to force out. But she does.

Control’s eyebrows quirk and his mouth softens. She had not expected sympathy when she walked into this room. She has failed. An operative was dead. _Her_ operative.

Control takes a long time before speaking. Natasha keeps her breathing slow and steady.

“You have been out in the cold for a very long time, haven’t you, Agent Alianovna?”

“Since I was fourteen, sir,” she tells him.

“That is twelve years. With very few breaks.”

“It has been an honor to serve my country, sir. I have not wanted to rest when I could be making my country a safer place.”

“That is an admirable sentiment. You have been well trained, and you have brought great pride to your country. But we must also remember that it is important to rest. Otherwise we grow too tired to be of any use.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Natasha blinks and furrows her brow. “You’ve seen my file. You know that I do not need time off like an ordinary agent.”

“You speak of the enhancements, I believe?”

“Da.”

Control smiles at her like a proud teacher. Natasha feels herself relaxing under the familiar sense of wellbeing such a look always gives her.

“Before I joined the Organization I was a mechanical engineering student at Moscow University, did you know? This was during the latter parts of our space program’s greatest achievements. But when I graduated there were no positions for me. I took a job here. And though I have remained here for many years I have not forgotten my early training. I, too, excelled at my education,” he dips a head towards her respectfully.

“One thing that has fascinated me as I look through your file is the concept of metal fatigue. Have you heard of it?”

Natasha shakes her head because he wants to explain it to her.

“Fatigue occurs when a metal is subjected to repeated loading and unloading. Eventually, these stressors will cause small cracks. And, after a while, these cracks will cause the structure to fracture, almost like an explosion, it happens so fast.” He snaps his fingers simultaneously to demonstrate.

“The more square holes a structure has, or sharp corners, the more elevated stress it displays.”

“I don’t follow, sir.”

“You are the metal, Agent Alianovna. And you have been under years of stress. A day here, a day there isn’t enough of a rest for the types of loading and unloading you have done.”

“If you order it, I will take a longer break, sir.”

“Yes, I think that would good. And then, when you come back, you and I can speak further about what happened with your operatives.”  
When Natasha is back on the street she takes a long, deep breath. She had not expected her de-briefing to be so light. She had anticipated more yelling. A lot more yelling.


	4. Wear and Tear on the Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All fun and no play makes Natasha a walking disaster zone.

At first, Natasha keeps to her normal schedule, the same she’d always had when she was not at work.

Training with her regular trainers at the gymnasium. Shopping. Getting massages and facials that leave her skin so bright she wants to give everyone on the street sunglasses.

She gets her hair dyed redder than ever before. It’s a bold, almost neon color. Previously, she would never have permitted herself to go so red. But she was on a break.

She should have done this years ago. Her bank accounts have just been sitting there while she was running around Croatia, and crouching on freezing rooftops in Poland.

She wears dresses she’d never have dared wear before, because you can’t exactly kick ass in a floor-length, velvet, off the shoulder gown. The men who take her to dinner and the ballet seem to appreciate it. So does she. She also enjoys the taking off of said gowns in luxurious hotel rooms with the men who take her to dinner and the ballet.

One man, in particular, Alexei, is the most fun. He’s the son of an oil billionaire, and is more than happy to take her skiing, or to the beaches in Thailand. He’s fun and charming, and exactly what she needs right now.

The drinking is different on vacation time too. There is so much more time for it. She goes through whole cocktail menus with Alexei, learning exactly which drink she, Natasha, likes best. Before, it was always what her character liked. But now she knows. Lemon drops. The vodka is icy, the lemons tart, and the rim of sugar as sweet as she can take it. She also likes whiskey at room temperature.

But she only drinks that when Alexei is away.

She drinks so much of it that one night she falls asleep on her couch, the first time that has ever happened. Despite the blinding headache, she rather likes being drunk, actually drunk and not pretend-drunk. She decides to try it again, soon.

Then she gets stood up in a restaurant. Alexei had promised to meet her, and she was wearing her newest gown, a white satin number that couldn’t be worn with underwear.

It was raining when she finally left the restaurant, after sitting at their table in the center of the room for two hours. The maitre’d tried to secure a taxi for her, but by the time one arrived her dress was nearly transparent and the vintage fur coat she wore with it was ruined.

She has a cold when she arrives at the training facility for her usual session. The room feels empty too, and she struggles through a workout. Marina, her trainer, forbids her from coming to her workout tomorrow.

Instead, Natasha rests in bed with hot tea laced with whiskey beside her, flicking through channel after channel of shows. She does not know what to watch. She has never had much time for television. It has always felt too neat and superficial. Too surface to be appealing. She prefers books. Or movies. But no book can hold her attention for long at the moment. Lately, she has been falling asleep during movies and waking up in the middle of the night, confused and unsettled.

She takes an extra day from training, even though the cold is gone. Her body feels sluggish and tired.

Pacing through the large Moscow apartment, Natasha picks up and sets down item after item, wondering where she got each of them, and why. They are so stupid. So stupid and so pretty.

She returns to the gym the next day. It isn’t good to get too complacent.

“You never told me, did your mother enjoy the spa trip?” she asks Marina as she stretches.

“Oh, yes. So much.”

“Where did you take her?”

“The hot springs at Terme Rogaska. She has been wanting to go to the spas for years now.”

“Terme Rogaska. Where is that?”

“Slovenia, where she is from. We visited with her family that still lives there, then spent two days soaking in thermal baths. So relaxing!”

“That sounds lovely.”

“How are you today?” Marina asks, watching her closely.

“I’m good. No more cold,” Natasha says, leaning over to stretch her hamstrings.

But, when she begins to spar with Markus everything feels off. Her reflexes are slow, and her punches lack force. Marina shakes her head.

“Maybe you take a few more days, yeah?” she suggests.

“If I take any more time off I’ll die of boredom,” Natasha tells her.

Marina shrugs but lets her go. She has been doing this her whole life, after all, she knows how to treat her body.

“I’m going to do some tumbling passes,” Natasha tells her. Tumbling always gets her head in the right spot.

She stands at one corner of the mat and breaths in slowly, focusing her attention on the task at hand.

No room for error, she thinks and takes off running.

She’s on her second pass when her left knee gives. Landing hard on it, she wails and topples over.

The pain rips through her like a flash of lightning, nearly blinding her for a moment. When she can stop crying and gasping she senses Marina by her side, stammering and gasping as well.

“Where does it hurt, HHH? Tell me, where?”

“My knee,” Natasha says through gritted teeth. Marina stays with her during the ambulance ride, and doesn’t want to leave her in the hospital either, but Natasha reassures her she will be fine. Besides, someone has to call the Organization.

It’s a tear. Not the worst they’ve seen, but still, requiring crutches and physical therapy, the doctors announce. She is given pain killers that barely work, and a brace that cinches her knee, keeping it in place. A wheelchair with a leg extender completes the miserable picture.

When Natasha is released the next day she is pale and drawn from pain, delirious but wired from opiates and unable to maneuver without the assistance of some junior official the Organization has ordered to her bedside.

She is given ‘round the clock care by the Organization for the next week. She barely speaks to them except for thanking them for meals, or a strong arm so she can stand from whatever seat or toilet or bed she is immobilized on. The TV provides background noise but Natasha doesn’t watch. She lays on her right side, staring down onto the narrow part of the city street she can see from her window.

In her living room the junior official of the day confers in low voices with last night’s aide.

“She is depressed, is she not?”

“Wouldn’t you be? If you were the most feared assassin since— well, if you were her and now you’re laid up with a ruined knee?”

“Yes, of course. But the doctors say she will make a full recovery. With physical therapy.”

“It will never be the same,” last night’s aide shakes his head. “You cannot recapture the same strength. Not at her age.”

“But she is young!”

“Twenty-six is young, yes, but she has been active since she was a child. Control says she is worn down.”

After a week of bed rest Natasha is ordered to a physical therapy session. Her red hair is faded but she doesn’t make another appointment. Her skin is dull. Her eyes are ringed by dark shadows that remain when the lights come on. The therapist holds her gently like she is an old woman, and it makes Natasha want to weep.

“Does it hurt?” the young woman says softly. Unable to speak, Natasha nods. It does hurt. She wants it to stop.

For six weeks she works with the therapist. She does nothing else. An hour session, then home. Order in food. Drink whiskey. Fall asleep on the couch. At first, the junior officials who are assigned to check on her pretend nothing is wrong.

Her nails chip. Her hair fades, and her roots begin to show. The gowns she bought hang in her closet. She wears yoga pants and T-shirts that are stretched at the neckline, with hoodies that start to accumulate stains on the cuffs from the food she eats in front of the television.

She doesn’t like to miss her shows. She prefers reality shows because they are easy to follow. The dating ones are her favorite because she likes to roll her eyes at the women who seem to only care about the stupid American man. Or _Survivor_. She can sneer at the helpless idiots who wouldn’t know the first thing about surviving.

The junior officials do not reveal the truth to Control. They soften the state of Natasha’s vacation life. They are optimistic that she will soon be fully recovered from her injury. They do not mention the whiskey. They do not mention the reality TV.

When she finishes therapy Natasha can walk like normal, but she is stiff and careful in training sessions. Marina suggests she goes to soak in the hot springs. The Terme Rogaska in Slovenia is sure to relax her. And maybe while she is there she can go to a salon, no?

Natasha smiles wanly at her. But she researches it.

“She wants to go to a spa?” one junior official says to the other.

“It’s therapeutic,” the other shrugs. “Besides, she’s no good to anyone like this.”

They both grimace down at their paperwork.

Control signs off, and Natasha can plan her trip.

It has been nearly six months since she sat in Control’s office, trying not to think about Karl.

Five months since she discovered a taste for long, velvet gowns.

Four months since she began enjoying whiskey.

Two months since she fell.

Three weeks since she began drinking tumblerfuls to fall asleep.

Tomorrow, she will go to the spas.


End file.
